Before the 17th century, religion meant totally a different thing that today.
'Religio' means any action with strong obligations regardless of whether the act is secular or related to anything Divine.
This was how Augustine, for example, defined religion.
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'Religio' means any action with strong obligations regardless of whether the act is secular or related to anything Divine.
This was how Augustine, for example, defined religion.
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Religion, as referring to a set of beliefs and propositions and rituals, the way that we understand nowadays, is totally opposed to how it was defined and understood in premodernity, namely, as any social obligation even those related to family and friends.
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The emergence of this new (re)definition of religion is accompanied by the decline of the power of church over the state and the increasing separation between the two.
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Moreover, the term "religion" as understood today has no equivalence in any other premoden traditional culture including Islam. This conception was imposed on the Muslim word during colonialism.
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Religion, as traditionally understood, was any act governed by a strong obligation.
It also differed in another important way from its modern redefinition, namely, that there was no universal category/genus of religion of which (eg) Christianity or Islam was one species.
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It also differed in another important way from its modern redefinition, namely, that there was no universal category/genus of religion of which (eg) Christianity or Islam was one species.
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The true 'religio', according to Augustine was Christianity, and all other religios (that is any other obligatory act which does not include Christ) are false religios. False religios include any act that are not done for or in the name of Christ.
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reduction of religion from a social obligation (secular and divine) to a mere set of beliefs and proposition happened during the 17th and 18th and crystallised in the 19th century.
This process was a symptom of the fall of the Church in Europe due to seculaization.
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This process was a symptom of the fall of the Church in Europe due to seculaization.
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last characteristic of the premodern understanding of religion was that it was a habit formation. A way of internalising knowledge and tradition. A prescriptive set of actions to align one's soul, mind, and body with an exemplary ethical behaviour that it becomes 2nd nature.
Therefore, it is wrong to describe Islam as a religion (as understood in modern times). It doesn't convey the full essence of what islam actually is or what it stands for.
Scholars like Massad have argued thst it should be translated in its original Arabic form.
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Scholars like Massad have argued thst it should be translated in its original Arabic form.
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